Pope Francis Is Wrong About My Child-Free Life

From what I've read most Catholics and others are impressed with Pope Frankie and his back to basics Christianity. No Prada shoes, no bling, fire a couple of Bishops and Cardinals who love the bling, wash some poor peoples feet and all will be right with the world. And then says: "no-one else has done more" to root out pedophilia than the Church". "The Church has acted with transparency and responsibility, yet it is the only institution to have been attacked" And now this from the fucktard.

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Like Mindy, I agree with you -- happily child-free here. And I also hope the two of you work things out as well as possible, without you going back to church just to "get along".

I've heard many sermons where the biblical text or the church teaching is just a jumping-off point for the values the preacher wanted to expound on. (How often do different people use the same holy book to reach support diametrically opposite conclusions opinions!)

Much better to start with something like that "other"actual Good Book, A. C. Grayling's The Good Book: A Humanist Bible. (Some editions have the subtitle "A Secular Bible".)

It's an entirely secular scripture, composed from many hundreds of inspiring writings. In the familiar format, it contains the books of Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Concord, Lamentations, Consolations, Sages, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, The Lawgiver, Acts, Epistles, and The Good. Unlike familiar religious scriptures, it has credits at the end. I've browsed it, and agree with Hiram that it lends itself beautifully for inclusion in humanist rituals, rites of passage, weddings, funerals, and so forth.

For me, with a very, VERY bad dog allergy, the tendency for people have pets rather than children is a huge burden. A whiff of a dog from a car makes me sick about 2 days (it used to be 5 days, it's gotten better). It's mostly pet dogs that cause me problems. Pet dogs in cars, because they appear at high speed and suddenly. People take their dogs everywhere with them.

I think I also have a cat allergy, but people don't take their cats with them everywhere, so cats aren't as big of a problem.

And those damn baby carriages with dogs in them ... It doesn't happen that often - mostly baby carriages have babies in them. But having encountered surprise dogs in baby carriages, I always look inside while holding my breath to check if it's really a baby inside.

I hope I don't stay that allergic. I'm getting intensive immunotherapy. But while I am that allergic to dogs, the permeation of society by pet dogs makes a normal life impossible. I take a big risk of getting sick when I go downtown, because it's crowded and there are a lot of dogs in cars and on the sidewalk. So I avoid being downtown. I don't go out on weekends or after working hours to avoid dogs; I make big detours around veterinary hospitals because many dogs in cars go by near them. I've gotten sick from long busrides, even if there aren't any dogs on board, because of the dog dander on people's clothes. I get allergic reactions from rental cars because they've all had dogs/cats in them. Etc. etc.

This happened to me because I was very sick for 4 years, living with my dog. I didn't know why I was sick, so I had an allergic reaction that literally lasted for years. In that time, I developed a very, very bad dog allergy.

Associating with people rather than animals does have the advantage that people aren't allergic to other people.